Core Beliefs, Assumptions, and Values
Organizations are filled with conversations dying to happen.
Everything necessary to accelerate your company's progress is already present but is either unexpressed or unheard. I tap into the inherent wisdom of the organization, establish a safe environment for conversations to occur, and create occasions for decision-making and action.
Teamwork does not come naturally.
We use the word "teamwork" constantly yet we fail to provide people with a pragmatic understanding of how to build teams and diagnose the source of breakdowns and conflicts that inevitably occur. Establishing a shared, common-sense, and practical understanding of teamwork can be easily accomplished.
No psychobabble. No silly games.
Everything I do, either in consulting or training, must be immediately applicable back on the job. Psychological jargon and theory is kept to a minimum. Workshop exercises must be designed to enhance transfer of learning. Useless games and embarrassing encounter-group-like exercises have no place in a professional environment.
Leaders don't know everything that is going on in their organizations.
Leaders might think they know but there are almost always issues and concerns affecting productivity and morale that they don't know about. Worse yet, no one will tell them.
Leadership is like looking in a mirror.
Whatever is going on in a team is in some way a reflection of the leader of that team. When people are not performing well, the only useful question for leaders to ask themselves is this: "What am I doing - or not doing - that contributes to the poor performance of my team or individual worker?"
Leaders are subject to distorted self-perceptions.
The higher you rise in management, the more distorted your self-perception is likely to become. You get less feedback and, if you are doing something that bothers people, they are unlikely to tell you. My job is to provide leaders with perceptions of them that people talk about with each other but rarely bring to the person who most needs to hear it.
90% of terminations are due to interpersonal or attitudinal problems.
The inability to do the job only accounts for 10% of separations. Deficiencies in EQ undermines teamwork, damages careers, sabotages productivity, and, when found in leader, is a significant factor in a team's performance and morale.
When terminations do occur, they are almost always long overdue.
The person's coworkers have have usually been frustrated by this person's poor performance for a long time. Faced with management inaction, they reach one of two conclusions. They think that management isn't paying attention and is unaware of what is going on. Or, worst yet, they assume that management knows but doesn't care.
Coaching and training must offer common-sense principles and tools.
Offered complex information and elaborate communication strategies that are difficult to put into practice, people won't remember them, they won't act on them, and you will regret paying for them.
Consulting projects are never neutral.
My presence raises hope that things will get better in an organization. I must either deliver on that hope or the outcome will be greater cynicism and greater reluctance to embrace the next change effort that comes along.
My client must be as committed to the work as I am.
I evaluate a potential client's commitment to carrying through on promises being made at the outset of any project. I will not be the occasion for staff to experience yet another failed change effort because management failed to deliver on their promises.
I have a responsibility to treat my client's money as if it were my own…very, very carefully.
If I don't think an intervention will work, I am morally obligated to say so. If I am not the appropriate resource for a project, I will assist my client in finding a resource better suited to do the work.